Race 1 or 2 Completed

An aggressive move from Jan Heylen on Connor De Phillippi with 21 minutes to go gave RS1 its first GT World Challenge America powered by AWS victory of the season in Saturday’s opening round of the weekend at Virginia International Raceway.
Heylen took his No. 18 Porsche 911 GT3 R to a 9.085-second victory over De Phillippi in the No. 99 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo that he shared with Kenton Koch.
It marked Heylen’s co-driver Sedgwick’s first career GTWC America victory.

The No. 50 Chouset Povoledo Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Aaron Povoldeo had been running second overall until Povoledo, who moved into the overall lead following a controversial pit stop sequence, pitted on the final lap.

Heylen passed Povoledo for the overall lead with 18 minutes remaining, after the team principal/driver ended up out front due to a bizarre set of circumstances.
While pole-sitter Philip Ellis enjoyed a 13-second overall lead in the No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, on the team’s traditional reverse driver strategy, an accident for Jean-Frederic Laberge in the No. 92 LAB Motorsport by GT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R led to a full-course caution with less than one hour to go.

Teams then pitted for their mandatory driver and tire changes, although most cars were held in their pit boxes in order for the newly installed driver to not exceed the maximum stint length time of 50 minutes.

The No. 50 Corvette of Povoledo emerged in the lead but appeared to leave the pit lane exit, where the time resets, with 50 minutes and 3 seconds to go.

Bill Auberlen followed him in second but the No. 51 Random Vandals team elected to bring Auberlen in for a self-instructed drive-through to reset his stint length, which then led to a stop-and-go penalty for a pit lane speeding infraction.
The remainder of the field appeared to exit pit lane under the maximum stint time.

The Pro-Am class win went to the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg, thanks to Foley’s late pass on the No. 24 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Darren Turner.
Turner and co-driver Gray Newell were forced to finish second in class.

The No. 11 DXDT Corvette of Matt Bell and Blake McDonald completed the class podium in third, with Povoledo provisionally classified eighth in Pro-Am.

Am class honors went to the No. 163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Ozz Negri and Jay Schreibman, which came home ninth overall.
It came after the No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 retired in the final 20 minutes after a piece of rubber hit the on-board fire extinguisher trigger and led to a loss of power according to Scott Dollahite

Race 2 is scheduled to start on Sunday at 2:45 p.m. EST with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and on Twitch, as well as on RACER Network.

RESULTS: Race 1